Still working on Acuitas' exploration skills - moving slowly due to some gnarly bugs and exciting activities at Day Job. He can wander around a simplified text adventure game and poke things!
https://writerofminds.blogspot.com/2026/10/acuitas-diary-102-october-2026.html
Collected updates about my two walking robots, the stepper motor quadruped and the hydraulic spider. Includes more video of the spider leg testing.
https://writerofminds.blogspot.com/2026/10/walking-robot-updates.html
Leg actuators work!! More news soon ... #robotics #hydraulics
He craves the forbidden macaroni #caturday
This is my #Heincke #WIP at about 28 hours in. For those who do not know, this is a research vessel, usually docked in #Bremerhaven at the #AWI (Alfred-Wegener-Institut)
I have the pleasure of painting this cool ship for someone who works on it. Everything else is pretty much done, except the actual ship, which I think should take me 8 hours or so.
#nordSee #research #climate #Klimaschutz #forschung #art #mastoArt #fediArt #art #painting #gouache #watercolor #bremen #klima #artist #balticsea
This month's AI topic is nested narratives - more common than you might think, not just a literary device!
https://writerofminds.blogspot.com/2026/09/acuitas-diary-101-september-2026.html
#AI #ArtificialIntelligence #SymbolicAI #NLP #chatbots
LEG. Still needs the hydraulics and springs installed. Two powered joints and passive ankle. #robotics
Fun with yard work: a branch half-broke off my tree and was dangling in front of my/the neighbor's mailboxes. Today I fulfilled my public responsibility to remove it. Too wimpy to pull it loose, I resorted to the "use your own body weight" trick - I jumped and hung from it. Success!
... except I did not stick the landing, and now there is a big, hard bruise just below my left elbow. lolsob
Doo-dee-do-do-do ... #robotics
I don't like the amount of play (out-of-plane rotation) in the homemade bearing, but it'll be fine until it's not. It does feel like it'll still be able to turn under weight, which is what it needs to do. #robotics #3dPrinting
Random rant: it annoys me when nerdy activities/organizations feel the need to apologize for themselves by touting benefits outside their central mission. E.g. FIRST claiming to be "more than robots" or SETI using the "not just aliens" tagline. It is FINE for FIRST to be about robots and SETI to be about looking for aliens! No one seems to expect traditional sports to explain how they're "more than just moving balls around."
No computer! Only chin scritches! #caturday
First print of spider body came out pretty well. There's a hint of warping at the base of the leg joint that sticks out, but not enough to ruin it. #3dPrinting #robotics
The latest Acuitas diary is about exploration behavior!
https://writerofminds.blogspot.com/2026/08/acuitas-diary-100-august-2026.html
It is my honor to announce that I'm officially published in Analog - "Roots' Remembrance" is OUT in the September/October issue! For more about this story and how to read it: https://writerofminds.blogspot.com/2026/08/roots-remembrance.html
Does anyone in my reach on here have/use a "solder paste mixer"? There seems to be some relatively inexpensive options as planetary mixers go and I'd some information about "this one is good/this one is bad/it makes a loud racket/it heats up a lot".
I'm not actually going to be using it for solder paste, but for chemistry milling reactions that will generate a fair bit of heat in the containers (dry reagents, zirconia or steal beads for milling) so I'm particularly interested in how various things close and if there is rubber/plastic likely to heat up and deform if the run time is more than 1-2 minutes.
Also interested in whether it is programmable for alternating run time with breaks for cooling (ie: 5 on 5 off, run 10 cycles)
Looking a bit more fleshed-out ...
Now, can I pull off the build?
#robotics #3dPrinting #hydraulics
Delighted to be a tiny piece of this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sempwv5MPMQ